We use a new database from fifteen emerging markets as well as from prewar and modern Japan to examine the popular view that business groups - ubiquitous in most emerging markets - facilitate risk sharing by smoothing the performance of affiliated firms. We replicate existing results on risk...

Diversified business (or corporate) groups, consisting of legally independent firms operating in multiple markets, are ubiquitous in emerging markets and even in some developed economies. The study of groups, a hybrid organizational form between firm and market, is of relevance to industrial...

We examine the hypothesis that business groups facilitate mutual insurance among affiliated firms and find substantial evidence of risk sharing by Japanese, Korean, and Thai groups but little evidence of it elsewhere. We also find no correlation between measures of capital market development and...

Diversified business groups, consisting of legally independent firms operating across diverse industries, are ubiquitous in emerging markets. Groups around the world share certain attributes but also vary substantially in structure, ownership, and other dimensions. This paper proposes a business...

Diversified business (or corporate) groups, consisting of legally independent firms operating in multiple markets, are ubiquitous in emerging markets and even in some developed economies. The study of groups, a hybrid organizational form between firm and market, is of relevance to industrial...

Researchers commonly assume that business groups, a ubiquitous organizational form in emerging markets, permit affiliated firms to share risk by smoothing income flows and by reallocating money from one affiliate to another in times of distress. This view has received support in the literature...

We investigate whether cultural differences between professional decision makers affect financial contracts in a large data set of international syndicated bank loans. We find that more culturally distant lead banks offer borrowers smaller loans at a higher interest rate and are more likely to...